My first real indication that the country I'm visiting is in any way
unusual (okay, there are also a few more billboards sporting the faces
of Khomeini and Khamenei than one finds in Vancouver) came when I
tried to type my first blog entry from Iran and discovered that
blogger (and livejournal and wordpress) are blocked. So I'm taking
advantage of my kind parents and asking them to post the blog entries
as I e-mail them to them.
I left Dublin very early Wednesday morning (one final kindness from
the Redding/Ryan gang was the Philip drove me out to the airport), and
flew to Tehran via long layovers in Stansted and Istanbul. Pegasus,
the sort-of-low-fares Turkish airline, had the most entertaining
safety videos I've ever seen, the first involving flight attendants
break-dancing through the safety procedures (one woman memorably doing
the splits to illustrate the floor lighting that will light up in case
of emergencies), and the second involving a bunch of children doing
the announcements and going through the steps in that cute-TV-child
way. Besides that, I had loads of time to read more of my history of
Iran, memorize some lines, and try to learn some elementary Farsi.
Between the new language and the play, my powers of memorization will
be heavily taxed this month.
The crowd flying from Istanbul was a cosmopolitan one, with lots of
glossy women in thick make-up and lush hair. As we landed in Tehran,
the headscarves came on one by one. And that's presumably the last
I'll see of women's hair for a month. Although in Tehran at least it
seems most people are pretty relaxed about how much hair shows out
from underneath the hejab.
My flight got in a little after 4am, I zipped through customs no
problem, got a little cash, and then got in a taxi into town. My poor
taxi driver had no idea where my hotel was and it took us over an hour
to find it, with him stopping a number of people on the street and
calling the hotel twice to get directions. I can't entirely blame him:
it's a blink-and-you've-missed-it flight of stairs up to a bunch of
rather spare rooms. No complaints--I wanted something cheap and don't
need anything more than I got. By 6am I was finally able to get some
of the sleep I so dearly needed.
I was up, showered, and out of the hotel by noon and ready to get my
first real impression of Iran. The plan is to shoot down to Isfahan
tomorrow, so today was more of just a get-your-bearings kind of a day.
But I did make a point of dropping in on the Golestan Palace to tick
one box on my traveller to-do list. Golestan is the palace from which
the Qajar dynasty ruled during the nineteenth century (Tehran only
became the capital fairly recently, so this is about as historical as
it gets), a period known for its opulent and dissolute monarchs as
Iran gradually fell further behind the European powers that were to
come to dominate it (Britain and Russia in particular). And Golestan
Palace lives up to that billing. It's a magpie's paradise, with
glittering mirror-encrusted walls and ceilings, dazzling chandeliers,
and various other monuments to gaudiness that assure the visitor that
the Qajars were indeed very, very rich.
In an odd way, it reminded me of Christ Church. Christ Church is
tasteful for the most part where Golestan emphatically isn't, but one
of the things I enjoyed about the more modest grandeur of Christ
Church in the last couple terms was the way it provided me with spaces
in which to entertain guests in a rather grand manner. I can imagine
that being shah of Iran had similar perks, except multiplied by a
million. I'd feel pretty chuffed if I could invite my guests into my
hall of mirrors and couch down on my throne as I offer them some tea.
In the courtyard I was befriended and briefly chatted up by a guy
who'd served in the navy since the 1970's and had started up a real
estate business since he retired. He kept on apologizing for his
fairly good English, telling me that his Italian was better. This
because he'd spent five years in Italy training as a naval cadet
because it's only recently that Iran has had a naval academy of its
own. It had never occurred to me that a country could have a navy
without a naval academy, but there you have it. He gave me his card
and told me to give him a ring if I needed help: "I am at your
service."
The rest of my afternoon involved a worryingly difficult hunt for a
few basic things, although at least it gave me a chance to take a long
wander through the streets of Tehran, which was at least half the
reason for hunting for things. The weather here is pleasantly warm
without being too hot, although the air is choked with the fumes of
the four million vehicles that clog the streets. The main streets have
something in the neighborhood of six lanes, with traffic aggressively
jockeying for every empty cubic inch of space, although counting lanes
makes it sound like the driving is much more orderly than it is.
Crossing the street is like playing Frogger at a super-advanced level:
you just pick your moment, say a short prayer, and step out into
traffic. I'm sure I'll get better at this, but I'm also taking
advantage of the bolder (and more experienced) Tehranis, and taking
their lead as to when to start the traffic dodging exercise. If I keep
down-traffic from them, I also have them as convenient human shields.
Getting to the other side is no guarantee of safety, since motorbikes
frequently take to the sidewalks to get through traffic jams.
I feel pleasantly innocuous here: unlike in Ethiopia, I'm not getting
too many gapes of astonishment at being a foreigner, even though I've
seen very few other foreigners in the streets (one upside is that
Golestan Palace was quite empty). I wish my Farsi were better, but
that will come in time. In the meantime, there are all sorts of little
struggles like finding vegetarian food, and, well, pretty much
anything. Thursday is a weekend day, so a lot of shops were closed,
but it took me more than two hours to tick off just three of the four
things on my to-do list.
The first was to get some cash. I changed a minimal amount at the
airport where the rates are higher, but then found that almost all the
exchange shops in town were closed. Finally found one, and shortly
thereafter found a razor and some shaving cream (item two on the list:
I've realized that this trip is going to be urban enough--and relying
on the kindness of hosts--that just letting the beard grow might not
be the best way to make myself presentable: wish I'd realized that
when I packed a few days ago). And then I had a surprisingly hard time
finding one of the reportedly ubiquitous "coffeenets," or internet
cafes (item three on the list). Again, a lot of places closed for the
weekend. But I've finally found one, had my first encounter with
internet censorship (also, don't expect me to have anything to say on
facebook for a month), and am now ready to find some food and then get
back to my hotel. Internet censorship works in funny ways: the guy
sitting next to me was frustrated in his attempts to watch the YouTube
video of some shoot-em-up video game he was clearly excited about.
This is the face of dissidence.
The fourth item that I haven't managed to sort out yet is to get a SIM
card for my phone, which will make contacting people (like my host in
Isfahan tomorrow) easier. But I've been asssured I should be able to
manage that tomorrow.
Depending on how you count it, Tehran is possibly (though not likely)
the largest city I've ever been in. Depending on how you count it, one
of Beijing, New York, Istanbul, or Calcutta seems to shoulder it out
of the top spot. But there are definitely a lot of people here. No
question about that.
unusual (okay, there are also a few more billboards sporting the faces
of Khomeini and Khamenei than one finds in Vancouver) came when I
tried to type my first blog entry from Iran and discovered that
blogger (and livejournal and wordpress) are blocked. So I'm taking
advantage of my kind parents and asking them to post the blog entries
as I e-mail them to them.
I left Dublin very early Wednesday morning (one final kindness from
the Redding/Ryan gang was the Philip drove me out to the airport), and
flew to Tehran via long layovers in Stansted and Istanbul. Pegasus,
the sort-of-low-fares Turkish airline, had the most entertaining
safety videos I've ever seen, the first involving flight attendants
break-dancing through the safety procedures (one woman memorably doing
the splits to illustrate the floor lighting that will light up in case
of emergencies), and the second involving a bunch of children doing
the announcements and going through the steps in that cute-TV-child
way. Besides that, I had loads of time to read more of my history of
Iran, memorize some lines, and try to learn some elementary Farsi.
Between the new language and the play, my powers of memorization will
be heavily taxed this month.
The crowd flying from Istanbul was a cosmopolitan one, with lots of
glossy women in thick make-up and lush hair. As we landed in Tehran,
the headscarves came on one by one. And that's presumably the last
I'll see of women's hair for a month. Although in Tehran at least it
seems most people are pretty relaxed about how much hair shows out
from underneath the hejab.
My flight got in a little after 4am, I zipped through customs no
problem, got a little cash, and then got in a taxi into town. My poor
taxi driver had no idea where my hotel was and it took us over an hour
to find it, with him stopping a number of people on the street and
calling the hotel twice to get directions. I can't entirely blame him:
it's a blink-and-you've-missed-it flight of stairs up to a bunch of
rather spare rooms. No complaints--I wanted something cheap and don't
need anything more than I got. By 6am I was finally able to get some
of the sleep I so dearly needed.
I was up, showered, and out of the hotel by noon and ready to get my
first real impression of Iran. The plan is to shoot down to Isfahan
tomorrow, so today was more of just a get-your-bearings kind of a day.
But I did make a point of dropping in on the Golestan Palace to tick
one box on my traveller to-do list. Golestan is the palace from which
the Qajar dynasty ruled during the nineteenth century (Tehran only
became the capital fairly recently, so this is about as historical as
it gets), a period known for its opulent and dissolute monarchs as
Iran gradually fell further behind the European powers that were to
come to dominate it (Britain and Russia in particular). And Golestan
Palace lives up to that billing. It's a magpie's paradise, with
glittering mirror-encrusted walls and ceilings, dazzling chandeliers,
and various other monuments to gaudiness that assure the visitor that
the Qajars were indeed very, very rich.
In an odd way, it reminded me of Christ Church. Christ Church is
tasteful for the most part where Golestan emphatically isn't, but one
of the things I enjoyed about the more modest grandeur of Christ
Church in the last couple terms was the way it provided me with spaces
in which to entertain guests in a rather grand manner. I can imagine
that being shah of Iran had similar perks, except multiplied by a
million. I'd feel pretty chuffed if I could invite my guests into my
hall of mirrors and couch down on my throne as I offer them some tea.
In the courtyard I was befriended and briefly chatted up by a guy
who'd served in the navy since the 1970's and had started up a real
estate business since he retired. He kept on apologizing for his
fairly good English, telling me that his Italian was better. This
because he'd spent five years in Italy training as a naval cadet
because it's only recently that Iran has had a naval academy of its
own. It had never occurred to me that a country could have a navy
without a naval academy, but there you have it. He gave me his card
and told me to give him a ring if I needed help: "I am at your
service."
The rest of my afternoon involved a worryingly difficult hunt for a
few basic things, although at least it gave me a chance to take a long
wander through the streets of Tehran, which was at least half the
reason for hunting for things. The weather here is pleasantly warm
without being too hot, although the air is choked with the fumes of
the four million vehicles that clog the streets. The main streets have
something in the neighborhood of six lanes, with traffic aggressively
jockeying for every empty cubic inch of space, although counting lanes
makes it sound like the driving is much more orderly than it is.
Crossing the street is like playing Frogger at a super-advanced level:
you just pick your moment, say a short prayer, and step out into
traffic. I'm sure I'll get better at this, but I'm also taking
advantage of the bolder (and more experienced) Tehranis, and taking
their lead as to when to start the traffic dodging exercise. If I keep
down-traffic from them, I also have them as convenient human shields.
Getting to the other side is no guarantee of safety, since motorbikes
frequently take to the sidewalks to get through traffic jams.
I feel pleasantly innocuous here: unlike in Ethiopia, I'm not getting
too many gapes of astonishment at being a foreigner, even though I've
seen very few other foreigners in the streets (one upside is that
Golestan Palace was quite empty). I wish my Farsi were better, but
that will come in time. In the meantime, there are all sorts of little
struggles like finding vegetarian food, and, well, pretty much
anything. Thursday is a weekend day, so a lot of shops were closed,
but it took me more than two hours to tick off just three of the four
things on my to-do list.
The first was to get some cash. I changed a minimal amount at the
airport where the rates are higher, but then found that almost all the
exchange shops in town were closed. Finally found one, and shortly
thereafter found a razor and some shaving cream (item two on the list:
I've realized that this trip is going to be urban enough--and relying
on the kindness of hosts--that just letting the beard grow might not
be the best way to make myself presentable: wish I'd realized that
when I packed a few days ago). And then I had a surprisingly hard time
finding one of the reportedly ubiquitous "coffeenets," or internet
cafes (item three on the list). Again, a lot of places closed for the
weekend. But I've finally found one, had my first encounter with
internet censorship (also, don't expect me to have anything to say on
facebook for a month), and am now ready to find some food and then get
back to my hotel. Internet censorship works in funny ways: the guy
sitting next to me was frustrated in his attempts to watch the YouTube
video of some shoot-em-up video game he was clearly excited about.
This is the face of dissidence.
The fourth item that I haven't managed to sort out yet is to get a SIM
card for my phone, which will make contacting people (like my host in
Isfahan tomorrow) easier. But I've been asssured I should be able to
manage that tomorrow.
Depending on how you count it, Tehran is possibly (though not likely)
the largest city I've ever been in. Depending on how you count it, one
of Beijing, New York, Istanbul, or Calcutta seems to shoulder it out
of the top spot. But there are definitely a lot of people here. No
question about that.
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